I don't understand why they didn't clearly communicate this when they released the new version. They should have given power user's the heads up and/or had a beta phase. Duh. It isn't as if they haven't been through this before.

You call it a fiasco and I call this classic Apple. They cleaned up, rewrote, simplified and brought full cross compatibility to the iWork Mac apps, and now they will begin to add features back to both the Mac and iOS versions. This is a teething period that we all need to go through if it means that the future roadmap is cleared for iWork. And they made all the apps free. Whomever had the idea to do all of this should get a raise IMO. You're misunderstanding what Apple is up to here. This is Apple at its best. If anything I think this is positioning iWork to be better able to be thought in schools. Simplifying, cleaning up and adding compatibility is making them the perfect productivity apps to be teachable to even young students.

I think everyone is missing the big reason why they did this. They are not just doing iWork for Mac and iOS, but also for the Web.

I can tell you first hand, doing any kind of editing of text, especially Rich Text, is not an easy thing to do on the web. I look at it this way, they are making this to be a direct competitor to Google and their Web Apps. If they continue to add these features that people are wanting to all three platforms of iWork, this is going to be the de facto office application, even over Microsoft Office.

Yes, it is bare now, but be patient, continue submitting feature requests, and it will get there.

iCloud has been far and away more secure than googles offerings but I do use both.

What's the issue here? Apple did not overwrite the old versions. They created a "new" iWork and set it alongside the old one. If the new one didn't do the trick for you, no problem; use the old one.

Possible courses of action for Apple are to:

1. Delay the launch so that you have have a feature-complete app with feature parity to meet the needs of 10% of the market.

2. During the announcements state that it's not as feature-complete as '09.

3. Just let it roll and deal with the 10%.

#3 is the only right answer. They could probably have helped a bit by having a "migrating from iWork '09" message when you start iWork or when you import an older document. Surely there could have been a way to phrase it such that it would not freak out the 90% for the benefit of the 10%.

I am fine with them taking this approach, like they did with FCP. I am not fine with them removing iWork '09 and all traces and support of it, until they close the gap. They want people to use their software (which I do) but then I become dependent upon it and hit issues when the functionality vanishes. Back to Office 2011 for 6 months then I guess...

They didn't remove iWork 09. It was moved to a folder in you applications folder called iWork 09.

Someone on a different blog nailed the reason why I got so excited over iWork '13 regardless of the temporarily missing features: it finally feels here to stay.
iWork felt unfinished, cluttered and in the closet before. Now, after all the effort it finally seems that Apple is going to make this a grown-up product. I love the cross-plattform compatibility and that I can share and collaborate with all my friends and colleagues without even worrying about formats and whatsoever. I love the new clean and streamlined UI using the sides taking advantage of the screen real estate (not like MS ribbons). And compatibility with MS office world seems also improved.

Because they wanted to see what they could get away with before having to respond? If nobody complains, then Apple would assume that they don't need to do anything else.

It is called a calculated risk. Or better, a calculated play. They a) wanted to get the software out b) had reached full x-platform compatibility c) had completed the interface overhaul (always a work in progress), d) knew they would please the vast majority of users. e) had a plan in place to restore lost features.

I suspect a fair bit of denial was at play, however. I think Apple is prone to that. It would have been easy to circumvent the wave of frustration and disappointment that has followed the release with a little bit of humility and most of all, communication.

I would rather have cross platform capabilities as opposed to "power" user capabilities...

Exactly. The suite was basically unusable as a cross platform solution. Apple needed to reboot the lineup to reduce the frustrations seen by many trying to use the apps cross platform.

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I would use iWork '09 to make rather elaborate charts for my real estate listings...I spent too much time to make them look pretty.

This is another thing, just because an app has features doesn't mean you should use them. Don't get me wrong there are valid complaints from people about missing features but there are just as many that make you wonder what the hell is wrong with people.

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When I got my iPad I redesigned the charts to be more simple so I could update them on my iPad. In doing so, it suddenly dawned on me that the more simple approach to my work flow was the way to go. I now achieve the same results with a lot less time and effort. And anything I can do on my iPad is more fun than on my iMac.

Hopefully people will see this as an example of working smart.

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I know this does not apply to power users, but I like Apple's approach. The ability to do my work on my mobile devices is the best!

Actually for a true power user iWorks has always left a lot to be desired. I never liked AppleScript and the apps have never been feature complete.

But Joe Average doesn't know or "get" why "feature parity" is significant. All they know is that it went from "it just works" to "WTF??"

Joe A enrage wouldn't know "just works" from a hole in the ground.

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This "feature parity" stuff was never even announced.

Baloney. Did you listen to what was said?

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Not very user-centric, which is what Apple is supposed (and expected) to be. Part of the Apple Experience is that things are supposed to appear and behave in obvious, expected and efficient ways. The new iWork rollout was anything but.

For old users maybe. For new users they will be seeing a suite of apps that just gets better and better as Apple updates the software over the next few releases. This is sort of the approach that the open source community advocates release often and early so that the software can be shaped by user feedback. Hopefully this is a sign that Apple will be more proactive in delivering a stream of improvements to iWorks over its lifetime.

Sorry, this is just not good enough. Pages is so buggy it's basically unusable for any documents with reasonable complexity. Missing features is bad. Shoddy coding is quite another. Apple is not exactly bathing itself in glory again here... Just stop releasing what you know you shouldn't guys.

If any other company released "updated" versions of their applications with so many missing features, everyone here would ridicule them for rushing premature software out the door. Why is Apple treated differently in this case?

For one thing it isn't an update but rather a complete rewrite. Second it isn't like they have deleted the old versions so effectively nothing is missing. As for being premature, you need to understand that software is never finished. As it is the new suite is very usable.

I don't think Apple is being treated differently here at all. It isn't like they are charging for this software or have deleted the ability of people to use legacy data files. This is a new direction for the software suite, you either use it or install something else. If you don't like it after an install it isn't like you are out of money or anything.

Exactly. The suite was basically unusable as a cross platform solution. Apple needed to reboot the lineup to reduce the frustrations seen by many trying to use the apps cross platform.
This is another thing, just because an app has features doesn't mean you should use them. Don't get me wrong there are valid complaints from people about missing features but there are just as many that make you wonder what the hell is wrong with people.
Hopefully people will see this as an example of working smart.
Actually for a true power user iWorks has always left a lot to be desired. I never liked AppleScript and the apps have never been feature complete.

Apple yanking features and telling its customers to suck it is nothing new. But Apple admitting the omissions and deciding to return the functionality? This is very new indeed.

They aren't admitting to omissions they are telling people to take a chill pill and relax. The intent to address functionality was already there, I believe Apple had every intention of releasing iWorks with more features as time goes on. Frankly shorter release cycles and small incremental improvements make far more sense than waiting years for a massive update to a suite. I really see nothing new here at all as Apple has been slowly changing directions here over the last couple of years.

This behaviour is exactly Apple-like. Any statement containing "expected" is certainly not Apple-like. :)

We all know this from the recent transition to FCP X but also form other transitions in the past, such as the transition to Intel or even the transition to OS X. Sure, there were few big native Intel apps in the beginning and sure, there were few native OS X apps in the beginning. And that's why people kept on using the old system and that's why there was Rosetta, that's why there was the old version of FCP and that's why the old versions of iWork remained on your hard drives.

That's how Apple does things, something slightly on the radical side, but rarely in such a way as to completely abandon its users. Most of the times this results in better products in the future.

--

Considering that exporting and reverting to the old file format is that easy, there is really no problem whatsoever, since people can keep on using the old versions until the new ones get the features people are missing that much.

However, also consider the bigger picture: iWork, while being fantastic had a limited audience. Those were paid apps, they didn't always exist on iOS nor in iCloud and they were an inconsistent mess.

With iOS 7, new iPhones and new iPads, as well as the move to make those apps free, Apple needed to do something about this state of affairs. iWorks audience will tenfold suddenly, because everyone buying a new device will get this software. Having a consistent and compatible experience across platforms and the browser is important and appealing, even if some power users won't be satisfied immediately. And let's be honest here, whomever didn't know the old iWork, will probably get going with the new one without missing anything, unless you're a total MS Office power user.

And just as with Final Cut Pro X, the defense "it's a brand-new version" is Apple being treated differently.

It is a complete rewrite not a new version. There is a huge difference here. That really has nothing to do with why Apple is being treated differently, it has more to do with the fact that Apple hasn't done anything to prevent people from using their old versions of iWorks. People have lost nothing here, this is why we defend Apple.

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Yes, it was receiving lots of complaints. But the complaints were generally dismissed and are still being dismissed by the Apple defenders. Would this happen for any other company?

Of course they are being dismissed as a good portion of them are nonsense.

People need to understand a few things. One of which is that iWorks was a very old software suite built around old APIs in a 32 bit environment. At some point you either need to give up on the suite or rewrite it to support modern APIs and such. By their nature rewrites will have priorities for certain features that may not agree with everybody else's priorities. That doesn't mean that doing a rewrite is wrong or that the priorities where not selected properly. The current iWorks is an example of getting the right features in place to build up the suite on the new infrastructure.

They could have avoided the backlash if they'd just announced that features were missing and were going to be added back in shortly.

What good would that do. If somebodies pet feature goes missing do you really think that every pet feature will eventually get implemented? Raising expectations that you never intend to meet is a bad thing for any company. This is why Apples response is very non specific in saying that some features will come back.

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This whole wall of silence maybe no one will notice bull shit does them no good!

That is BS, Apple knows damn well what is and isn't in the suite, if they thought it was a complete replacement for iWorks 9 they would have deleted iWorks 9 with the installation of the current suite. They didn't do that because there are obvious gaps in support. I'm not sure where all this Apple is evil garbage comes from, Apple was very clear about what priorities where stressed in the development of the new version.

I'm one of those disappointed by the new applications. I am disappointed because important features* disappeared from applications that I really like using and they have become incapable of meeting my needs (when previously I always felt they punched above their weight). The disappointment stems from the need to migrate to some new application for the long term, bringing a learning curve and migration work for existing and long-lived documents.

So I was pleased to see this announcement. But... looking at the examples from Apple for both Pages and Numbers, they all (with 1 possible exception) seem to be about the way in which you produce the document, not the document's actual content. If that's correct, then this isn't really any help Can anyone offer a more optimistic interpretation?

*An example that's far from trivial is double-sided documents in Pages. To produce these for print you need to be able to set mirror-image alternate page margins (to provide gutters for the binding) and two-page spread display for document design. As far as I can see, both of these have disappeared.

Unless you deleted iwork 09 from your mac it's still there. If you just bought a new Mac grab a copy of iWork off of eBay or amazon. Simple

People should not have to do these workarounds - it's Apple, it should "just work". I bought a new MBA for my wife (she's a writer) and the time machine backup dumped iWork 09. Sure enough, a crap load of her work didn't port nicely.

Now OK, I was able to resolve it easily by dragging the TM file manually and re-associating all of her saved docs with the old version. But should I have to?

I told a white lie before... she won't be going to Office (I use it for work though), she bought Scrivener - but I imagine won't go back to iWork. This is a real person, a real Mac person (since 1988), a writer, an iPhone and iPad user... a typical Apple demographic. Not some whiny twerp. I think this is a misstep on Apple's part, and I'm not sure why it's defended.

IMO - if they are putting these things back in in six months... they should have just waited.
Apple... you can seem so encorrigible sometimes.

I wouldn't expect all of the features in there in 6 months or even a year, but they will start adding them as they can along the lowest-common-denominator. This is the way to go, I only wish they would have realized this sooner.

Again, if one doesn't like it it's not like they removed iWork '09 app so what people are really complaining about are having more options, which is silly.

I am fine with them taking this approach, like they did with FCP. I am not fine with them removing iWork '09 and all traces and support of it, until they close the gap. They want people to use their software (which I do) but then I become dependent upon it and hit issues when the functionality vanishes. Back to Office 2011 for 6 months then I guess...

But Apple did not remove the previous version. It removed the old version to a separate folder.

I am disappointed because important features* disappeared from applications that I really like using and they have become incapable of meeting my needs (when previously I always felt they punched above their weight).

Exactly my point when it was released - they made it so all versions have feature-parity; and for that to happen a complete rewrite had to take place.

When "feature parity" is announced and a higher number version is shipped, normal people will expect that features missing from one version will be added, not that the better featured product will be gutted.

"That (the) world is moving so quickly that iOS is already amongst the older mobile operating systems in active development today." — The Verge

I am fine with them taking this approach, like they did with FCP. I am not fine with them removing iWork '09 and all traces and support of it, until they close the gap. They want people to use their software (which I do) but then I become dependent upon it and hit issues when the functionality vanishes. Back to Office 2011 for 6 months then I guess...

But they didn't remove iWork '09. The old versions remain on the machine that you can still use.

The part about this that sucks is that these newer versions have SOME features that I want, but are missing features that the old version has. Yes, they are working on it, but now I've got to deal with TWO different softwares that are only marginally compatible with each other.

I get that this version is a complete re-write. But what happened (and is common in the software world) is that the software was released before it was complete. Now, if this was a brand new title, it wouldn't be as big of a deal, as new features can be added as improvements. But a re-write that comes out with less features doesn't make people happy. It doesn't mean the new software isn't functional, or have amazing growth potential as better software in the future, it's just a temporary step sideways.

Had Apple simply created a new identity for the software, they may have avoided the backlash, but the iWork suite names are already gaining traction in the market. Apple had to decide if the name was worth more than the backlash they would receive with this release. For new iWork users, it's better to get out this functional software as soon as possible. Old users can continue to use iWork 09 for a while yet until iWork2 is ready for prime time.

This pretty much reflects the transition we saw from OS9 to OSX. When OSX first hit the scene, it was barely usable, and now, it blows away anything that OS9 had to offer.

Yeah, it was another manufactured "fiasco", just like the maps "debacle". Creating completely new versions of iWork, with 100% file compatibility and syncing between 3 completely different platforms, while leaving the current version available. What a fiasco.

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Originally Posted by Haggar

If any other company released "updated" versions of their applications with so many missing features, everyone here would ridicule them for rushing premature software out the door. Why is Apple treated differently in this case?

If you honestly think rewriting such large pieces of software from scratch, developed for complete compatibility between the web, iOS, and OSX, will have EVERY damn feature of the old desktop-only version ready at launch, and this is feasible and realistic, then you live in an imaginary world.

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Originally Posted by Zoolook

I am fine with them taking this approach, like they did with FCP. I am not fine with them removing iWork '09 and all traces and support of it, until they close the gap. They want people to use their software (which I do) but then I become dependent upon it and hit issues when the functionality vanishes. Back to Office 2011 for 6 months then I guess...

What the **** are you talking about? The installer makes a point not to touch iWork09. It's still all there, unless you manually deleted it. These posts make me wonder if people like you actually own Macs, or are simply jumping on the bandwagon to troll. What you're stating has no basis in fact. Anyone that wanted to continue working in iWork09 could have done so with no issues whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by Haggar

Because they wanted to see what they could get away with before having to respond? If nobody complains, then Apple would assume that they don't need to do anything else.

Yes, you're so right. Because clearly Apple planned to completely discontinue development of iWork instantly after launch, and disband the entire iWork development team right then and there, with no future development planned whatsoever. How astute you must be. Any rational individual can see that was announced was obviously on the development timetable.

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Originally Posted by Rogifan

And Steve Jobs said Apple was a software company.

Please point me to a time where Apple had better/more reliable/more powerful software than they have now? I've been using Apple products for a while, and I certainly can't think of one.

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Originally Posted by pepechin

And, by the way.... who's the genius at Apple that is seriously thinking in parity between OSX-iOS versions?. Trying to use old Pages 09 power in the only-one-app little iPad screen is simply ridiculous.

No, you're right, in this day and age, NOBODY wants parity between mobile and desktop platforms, thats just crazy talk. I mean, who owns a table and/or smartphones, and/or a laptop these days, and would benefit from the same software suite behaving nicely between all devices? Such an insane scenario, right? Oh, and you might mock the use of Pages, etc on an iPad, but that doesnt mean millions of people don't use it to create or edit documents. And no, it's nowhere near ridiculous. Not everyone needs multiple windows visible all at once when writing/editing a document. Try to look beyond your own nose. iPad is being billed as a creation device, and I don't know what is more valuable than ensuring compatibility of these creations with other platforms.

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Originally Posted by manfrommars

Apple yanking features and telling its customers to suck it is nothing new. But Apple admitting the omissions and deciding to return the functionality? This is very new indeed.

Apple never "yanked" anything. It simply prioritized what it wanted to add across all platforms while recreating the apps from scratch. But yeah, returning fucntionality is COMPLETELY new. It didn't happen with the new Final Cut X. Or Logic Pro. Or iMovie. No, that must have been in another, fictional world.

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Originally Posted by pondosinatra

And they removed them in the first place why????

Nothing was "removed" You seem to not comprehend the 1st thing about development, especially developing something completely new. You can't just "copy and paste" all the features back in there. Oh, and iWork09 is still present on your Mac, I assure you. Nothing was retro-actively "removed" from that either.

I'm all for constructive critisism, but seriously some of the things being spouted are just mind-numbing, especially when people try to present a narrative of Apple destroying their livelihoods/etc whatever after every new product. The new iWork doesn't suit your needs yet? Ignore it for now- absolutely nothing will change in your workflow. Meanwhile, millions of other "non-power" users will enjoy the benefits (of which there are many) of this new iWork, especially 100% compatibility, collaboration features, and increased useability in many areas.

But they didn't remove iWork '09. The old versions remain on the machine that you can still use.

The part about this that sucks is that these newer versions have SOME features that I want, but are missing features that the old version has. Yes, they are working on it, but now I've got to deal with TWO different softwares that are only marginally compatible with each other.

I get that this version is a complete re-write. But what happened (and is common in the software world) is that the software was released before it was complete. Now, if this was a brand new title, it wouldn't be as big of a deal, as new features can be added as improvements. But a re-write that comes out with less features doesn't make people happy. It doesn't mean the new software isn't functional, or have amazing growth potential as better software in the future, it's just a temporary step sideways.

Had Apple simply created a new identity for the software, they may have avoided the backlash, but the iWork suite names are already gaining traction in the market. Apple had to decide if the name was worth more than the backlash they would receive with this release. For new iWork users, it's better to get out this functional software as soon as possible. Old users can continue to use iWork 09 for a while yet until iWork2 is ready for prime time.

This pretty much reflects the transition we saw from OS9 to OSX. When OSX first hit the scene, it was barely usable, and now, it blows away anything that OS9 had to offer.

When electing to drop Carbon as a programming environment, Apple was forced to rewrite all of its Apps. It gave it the opportunity to rework the foundation of all its apps, but it came at the expense of the new apps not having all the features that took many releases to include.

This is true and has been said repeatedly. However, for an entire class of users, it does not help.

Today, I can use iWork '09 just like I did yesterday. But, in 3 years time, how much sympathy will you (or anyone) have for me when I say that my 3 years obsolete application no longer works on OS X 10.12? So, if I have documents (or templates or processes) that are long-lived then they have to be migrated to some other application or they will, at some arbitrary point in the future chosen by someone else, stop working. For some users that's just not acceptable. If it's just a letter to send tomorrow then it doesn't matter, if it's long-lived then it does matter (and guess which is likely to be the most complex).

And to repeat, I'm not upset because iWork isn't very good, I'm upset because it used to be so good! For example, I have used MS Word extensively for years and it stinks compared to Pages. But the latest Pages version is hobbled and I hope Apple fix that. Or perhaps it was wrong to assume that Pages could ever compete with Word.